SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Traveloka, Southeast Asia’s largest online travel app, said on Monday it was looking to go public soon and was evaluating a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) as a possible stock-market listing option.
SPACs are shell companies that use proceeds from going public to buy another company, not yet identified at the time of listing. The resulting merger with the target company, often a start-up in a high-growth sector, offers it a faster and lower cost way to market than a traditional initial public offering (IPO).
“A SPAC is one of the options we are evaluating given we have been approached by a few,” Traveloka president Henry Hendrawan said in a statement in response to a Reuters query.
Bankers have also said Jakarta-based Traveloka is among a handful of Southeast Asian companies that have been approached or are targets of SPACs.
A source with knowledge of the matter said Traveloka is still deciding between an IPO or a SPAC and eying a…